One of the latest VMware rumors has finally been put to rest. After four years at the helm of VMware, Paul Maritz is being replaced as CEO by EMC chief operating officer Pat Gelsinger, effective Sept. 1. As part of this executive move, Maritz will go back to EMC in a newly created role as the company's chief strategist. But Maritz won't be completely gone from the virtualization scene, as he will remain as a member of VMware's board of directors.
As part of this executive shakeup, EMC's chief financial officer David Goulden was promoted to the position of president and chief operating officer at EMC, filling the hole left by Gelsinger's departure. Goulden will wear multiple hats, as he retains the role and title of CFO.
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After the official announcement, the two companies took to the airwaves to try and calm the investor community and its virtualization customer base. The companies also delivered preliminary financial results for the second quarter, which ended any speculation that Maritz was leaving because of poor financials. The virtualization giant is projecting record quarterly revenues of approximately $1.12 billion, up 22 percent from Q2 2011. VMware also expects full-year 2012 revenues to be somewhere between $4.54 billion and $4.64 billion.
In Maritz's four years leading VMware, he posted record income, maintained market domination in the server virtualization in the face of increased competition, and expanded the company into new markets such as the cloud, mobile computing, applications, and desktop virtualization. During his reign, the company also acquired a number of new technologies, expanded its workforce, and is currently in the process of doubling the size of its campus -- all in a down economy.
"Today we are witnessing an extraordinary transformation in the IT industry unlike anything we have seen before -- a major shift to cloud computing, big data applications, and delivering IT as a service," said EMC chairman and CEO Joe Tucci in a company statement.
Why, you might ask, make this change now?
